enlightened horsemanship through touch

Read it at Equine Ink.

Wrapping up Enlightened Horsemanship Through Touch will involve the weaving of a lot of loose ends. During this three year experiment, I discovered my purpose as a writer. And I found a lot of folks out there who either share my interests or who make interesting and informed contributions to conversations about those interests. Shared biology, neurobiology, psychology, neuropsychology, sociology and equine behavior as they relate to human-equine interactions, specifically training, with a focus on the sensory system, will be my focus.

In the interest of furthering my knowledge about those topics, I’m planning on posting a series of topics and questions that I sincerely hope you all will respond to. In the eventuality that this work leads to a publication, anyone who responds here or via email will be duly credited.

Many, many thanks for reading, and/or taking the time to explore these issues with me.

On to the first question: WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE WERE THE SOCIAL AND EVOLUTIONARY BENEFITS/REWARDS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF MIRROR NEURONS AND BODY SYNCHRONY IN HORSES AND HUMANS? WHAT ARE THE REWARDS NOW AND HOW CAN WE EXPLOIT THEM FOR MUTUAL BENEFIT?

I’m thinking about the evolutionary and biological precursors of the herd instinct. According to Frans De Waal, as a reflex, and as a biological entity, the herd instinct (and even man as a social animal) goes way back to the deepest, oldest layers of our brains. We share these layers not just with other mammals, but even with “lower” orders such as amphibians and fish. Even as humans began to hunt the savannas, we were still prey animals. Individuals hide within a larger herd to increase security from predators.* De Waal stresses security as the first and foremost reason for social life, and how predation forces individuals together, on both sides of the equation: predator and prey. Needless to say, when reading this, I thought immediately of horses and humans, and how they relate among themselves and to one another.

I am wondering about the roles of mirror neurons** and body synchrony*** in both horses and humans.

Thanks for thinking!

* Frans de Waal, The Age of Empathy, p 19.

**see also: Mirror Neurons Support the Need for Compassionate Horsemanship and
Mirror Neurons, Ownership of the Self, and Proprioception

***Body Synchrony: (whether it is via the pathway of mirror neurons is unknown) the mechanism by which animals move in coordinated movement. Think of large schools of tiny fish rapidly changing direction to avoid a shark, or thousands of wildebeest changing course upon an unseen cue, or, in a scenario more familiar to most of us, a herd of horses doing the same. Even humans make use of body synchrony in conversation, etc., and enjoy such processes as walking in step, dancing, and singing.

From Paul Griffin, in Dharma Science: Ramachandran and Anatta on Tuesday April 20, 2010

The Buddhist philosophy of psychology and perception, the Abhidharma, is a critical teaching. Here, the concept of perception is methodically broken down into its constituent parts, revealing how our self-identification is a kind of mental mistake. The result of this view is anatta, or no-self, which leads directly to interconnectedness. For the individual, the result is the natural flow of empathy for our fellow man who is stuck in the same painful illusion of selfhood. In other words, an understanding of no-self leads directly to compassion for others, to the heart of the Buddhist view. Meditation practice or a study of the Abhidharma help cultivate this view of selflessness. But

“what if meditation or the study of Buddhist philosophy doesn’t work for you? Well, there’s always science!” Read how V.S. Ramachandran suggests that our intense body-ownership-awareness is a kind of neurological mistake, one that is further enforced by our culture.

Maybe those who feel “at one” with their horses are really on to something after all.

Just when I start to have faith in the intelligence of trainers and horsepeople, a reader question to Julie Goodnight on the category of horse behavior, on her website sets me back.

The questioner relates problems associated with a four-year-old draft mare in training under harness who is respectful to people but aggressive toward a pasturemate gelding.

Generally they get along fine. However, sometimes she just lays into him kicking, biting, running at him and charging him. Sometimes we are in the pasture with them when this behavior is going on. Needless to say, we are a bit nervous about getting caught in the crossfire.

Two questions for you:

1) Some of this is no doubt just normal horse behavior. Is there an underlying training issue though that we should be addressing with our mare?

2) She has never demonstrated any tendency at kicking towards us. We do recognize the risk to our safety when she is acting this way towards the gelding and we happen to be in the way. But is it likely that a horse acting this way with another horse will start getting that kicking tendency with humans?

Clearly, the questioner is new to horsekeeping. That’s not a problem. Everyone is new in the beginning. They depend on good, safe advice from those who have experience. One would think that well-known trainers like Goodnight would dispense sensible, time-tested advice on how to deal with such issues. This is the problem: wait until you read what Goodnight suggests as an alternative to learning about horse behavior and how to handle horses on the ground. I wonder if she gets a kickback from the manufacturers of the product she obliquely endorses.

While the behavior you describe could be chalked up to normal herd behavior, some horses can be classified as bullies. These horses are unnecessarily aggressive towards others. In other words, even after dominance has been fully established, they continue to attack other horses around them—seemingly for no good reason other than just to pick on them. If the gelding is not doing anything to deserve these attacks, then I’d say your mare is a bully.
There is one sure-fired method of curing aggressive horses and I have used it a few times for this purpose. It is a shock collar. It straps around the horse’s neck and is operated off a remote control, issuing a mild and brief shock when you push the button on the remote. Shocking her for her two or three times for her unwarranted and dangerous behavior would probably be all it would take to permanently resolve her of the aggressiveness.

The Vicebreaker

It is intended for use with extreme behavior that is harmful to horse, humans and/or property and it is highly effective. I’ve used it for stall and trailer kickers, for aggressive horses and for a tantrum throwing horse, who threw a wall-eyed destructive tantrum any time you’d take his buddy away. In most cases, one or two training sessions resolved the bad behavior; for the tantrum thrower, it took a few more.

Many people are initially turned off by this approach—I suppose thinking it is cruel or too harsh. But in my opinion, in certain circumstances, it is the most humane approach. I know of a horse who has now kicked and killed two horses by kicking them and breaking their legs. Then, take the case of a stall kicker—whose behavior can cause him serious injury and is destructive to property (and may result in him being evicted from a boarding barn). The most common training technique for this vice is to hang “kicking chains” on the horse’s hind legs which wrap him in the legs every time he kicks (and bumps his legs every time he moves). It will discourage him from kicking but you have to leave the chains on forever—not a very nice thing for the horse. Whereas one or two sessions with the shock collar would permanently cure him of stall kicking and prevent him from injury.

I would think it might have even more effects than that. Like shock collars for dogs, this seems to me to be a case of thoughtless overkill. The horse’s sense of touch is very keen. To assault him via this avenue strikes me as cruel and extreme. But maybe I’m being naive. There are situations in which horses can be even more dangerous than the horse the reader describes. This from Stopping Aggression Problems With an Equine Shock Collar from the AAEP Convention, 2004 by Stephanie L. Church:

Veterinary expense, property damage, loss of use of affected horses, and the emotional cost associated with the death of an animal if injured severely during an aggressive act all demand a reliable way to change this behavior in the horse. Kennedy has experienced success in using an equine electronic collar with a number of horses.
Aggressive behavior in horses results in a range of injuries that often must be attended to by a veterinarian, from minor cuts and bruises to career-ending or life-threatening injuries. These injuries are a direct result of being bitten or kicked, or chased through or over a fence.

We have all seen horses that have experienced these injuries. We have all pondered how to prevent them from happening. First step in prevention: veterinary examination to rule out health issues that might contribute to the dangerous behavior. Cryptorchidism, ovarian cysts, pain, conformational issues that negatively affect perception can all cause aggressive behavior. Stop right there if these and more are detected. You know what to do. But what if no possible medical cause is detected? The next step is determining how to stop the undesirable behavior.

Isolate the horse?
Rehome the horse?
Euthanize the horse?

This article says,

some horses are emboldened by a barrier since they know the target horse will be less likely to show retribution since a fence is in the way. Not every horse owner is blessed with dead space between fence lines, and many boarding stables aren’t able to accommodate a horse requiring isolation. Isolation can lead to further behavioral problems. Then we reach our final option, which is to sell the aggressive horse. Many do not want to do this because the horse may be exceptional in every other way–they just have a hard time getting along with others.

What does the research say about the effectiveness of equine shock collars? Do they eliminate aggressive behavior in the short or long term?

One study looked at a group of 15 horses that were either aggressive toward a new horse in the pasture, aggressive toward a horse on the opposite side of a fence, or aggressive within an established herd.

About the collar used: The collar rests anywhere behind the throatlatch, and it does not matter where on the neck the receiver is touching the horse.

When you see the horse doing what he shouldn’t, you push the button. Start at the lowest (shock) level–I didn’t count horses that were just posturing with their ears back, I only corrected them when they made an aggressive move toward another horse,” she explained. On the transmitter, which has six levels of intensity, the required levels ranged from 2-5 to stop the aggression, with a mean of 4. One to four stimulations were used on each horse, but most only required two to change their behavior.

Aggressive mares in a pasture responded to stimulation when they were aggressive toward a new mare added to the pasture. Upon the first stimulation, aggressive mares would have instant posture changes. Those mares tended to follow the new mare around for a few minutes, apparently trying to figure out if the new mare was responsible for the shock. After the second shock, the aggressive mares apparently decided to befriend the new mares, seeking to graze next to them and accepting them as part of the group.

he total time before first and last stimulations required to change the behavior ranged from 10 minutes to 2 and a half days. Collars remained on the horses for one week, and aggressive behavior was monitored for a period of 30 days following the initial correction period. None of the horses exhibited aggressive behavior during that interval. The collar was determined to be extremely effective in deterring aggressive behavior.

The authors of the study say that the collar is effective because the correction is instantaneous and concurrent with the undesirable behavior, and invisible. There is no apparent agent of discipline. As such, they say, the collar can be used to deter aggressive behavior against humans, too.

Most issues are not mean horses. Usually it’s a lack of respect, and they know that they can dominate the owner and can avoid a whip. Most know it’s bad, but think they can get away with it. If the client can be consistent in observing the horse, the collar can work well for cribbing and stall walkers as well. These types of behaviors won’t be stopped by one or two sessions of use. However, many cribbers can become collar-wise and any time the horse is likely to crib, the owner needs to be present with the transmitter.

ELECTRONIC COLLAR STUDY RESULTS

Group 1: Pasture Aggression (Six Mares)
Number of times stimulated: 1–4
Time between first and last stimulation: 10 minutes–1.5 hours
Total length of time collar was on horse: 1 week for all horses
Levels used: 3–5
Number of horses that reverted to aggressive behavior in the month after the removal of the collar: 0*

Group 2: Aggression With Barrier (Three Stallions, Two Mares, and One Gelding)
Number of times stimulated: 2–4
Time between first and last stimulation: 15 minutes–2 1/2 days
Total length of time collar was on horse: 1 week for all horses
Levels used: 3–5
Number of horses that reverted to aggressive behavior in the month after the removal of the collar: 0*

Group 3: Paddock Aggression (Two Geldings)
Number of times stimulated: 2–4
Time between first and last stimulation: 1.5–2 days
Total length of time collar was on horse: 1 week for all horses
Levels used: 2–4
Number of horses that reverted to aggressive behavior in the month after the removal of the collar: 0

Group 4: Aggression Associated With Feeding (One Mare)
Number of times stimulated: 4
Time between first and last stimulation: 2 days
Total length of time collar was on horse: 1 week
Levels used: 3–4
Number of horses that reverted to aggressive behavior in the month after the removal of the collar: 0

*Other observations that were made in the pasture and over fence groups were that the results, although long-lasting for that particular neighbor or new horse, did not extend to a new neighbor or additional new horse being introduced and the process had to be repeated.

I honestly believe that the same results can be achieved with less harmful and, if you’ll pardon the pun, shocking means. Training and companionship with humans along with other horses by professionals and well educated owners cannot be replaced by a torture device. If a horse has aggression issues, a lack of “respect” may be the result of many deeper causes. Only with time, patience and inquiry will these issues be discovered and resolved. A shock collar is a cruel bandaid.

I am appalled that Julie Goodnight would hawk such a contraption when her claim to fame is the training of horses. If we can’t trust the trainers who are supposed to teach us how, then who can we trust?

Healthy moms play more with their kids. It has now been proven. Cracked out moms passed out on the couch clutching a liquor bottle and a box of kleenex and KOOLS aren’t as good at their jobs as those who take La Leche League classes and go to aerobics three times a week and eat an apple a day. An article in Discovery.com by Jennifer Viegas tells us that it’s the same for horses. More reason to keep that dam healthy after foaling. I have made some mistakes out of ignorance in this area, so it feels right to post this article entitled, Promoting Strong Sons . What’s different about horses is that dams show a clear preference for their sons over their daughters!

Healthy wild horses show marked preference for investing time and energy in their sons.

A colt and young mare rub noses, in Montana. Scientists have discovered that healthier mares invest more in sons over daughters, with the investment consisting of more milk, protection and direct contact. These sons then played more, even at the expense of the moms, who temporarily lost weight and strength taking care of their boys. | image courtesy http://dsc.discovery.com

Evidence from this study on horseplay suggests that the equine findings could carry over to other polygynous animals, including humans. The term, polygynous describes species with males that can mate with more than one female over a relatively short period of time, with the pairings all possibly resulting in pregnancies.

Mothers are advantaged differently by investing in sons or daughters in relation to their own condition and the future reproduction of their offspring. Sons have the highest potential payoff, as sons can leave you many more grand-offspring than daughters can.

This from Elissa Cameron, director of the Mammal Research Institute at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. She and her colleagues studied wild horses in New Zealand known as Kaimanawa. These horses live in year-round bands consisting of multiple mares, at least one stallion and their foals. Cameron and her team focused on the interactions between mothers and their young, and particularly on the foals’ play behavior. Horses play by manipulating objects, simulating courtship and mounting, running alone or with a partner, and by play fighting.

The scientists discovered that healthier mothers invested more in sons over daughters, with the investment consisting of more milk, more vigilant protection and increased direct contact. These sons then played more, even at the expense of the moms, who temporarily lost weight and strength taking care of their boys.

Mothers in overall poor condition, however, invested more time and resources in their daughters.

Cameron explained that while males in general breed more, not all male horses will turn out to be busy breeders, whereas almost all female horses that reach adulthood will breed at least once.

Therefore, if you have a lot of extra resources and can turn your son into a highly competitive male, he will leave you more grand-offspring. Alternatively, if you have few resources to invest, a son would be unlikely to ever breed, whereas your daughter would probably breed, thereby leaving you more grand-offspring.

Cameron added that sires might affect the process to some degree, as they occasionally groom and play with their foals, but the bulk of the parental care falls on mothers. The process results in a domino effect that influences the rest of the horse’s life. A horse that receives more care from its mother tends to play more. Since playtime appears to enhance both physical and mental health, playful individuals tend to grow into healthier adults, which then start the process all over again. The health of the mother may even predict the gender of the foal she will give birth to in the first place.

A separate study on 740 first-time pregnant human moms led by the University of Exeter’s Fiona Mathews found that mothers who ate a high-energy diet at the time of conception produced sons more often than moms who took in less nutrition before conceiving.

Here we have evidence of a ‘natural’ mechanism that means that women appear to be already controlling the sex of their offspring by their diet. This research may help to explain why in developed countries, where many young women choose to have low-calorie diets, the proportion of boys born is falling.

Jennifer Viegas writes, “While genetics also help to determine an individual’s sex, health, playfulness and more, the two studies reveal how mothers can play a major role in controlling the destinies of their children.”

Another in the long line of “duh, we already knew that” articles, this time out of the University of Rennes in France.

Why Does My Horse Do That?

If a horse spends most of his time standing in the same position in his stall, would you say he’s just bored? And what about a mare that threatens to bite when you approach her stall–is she vicious?

The latest behavior research coming out of the University of Rennes suggests that these behaviors are not the result of viciousness or boredom as one might think. They have cottoned on to the fact that, chances are these actions indicate that something is not right with the horse.

snaffled with gratitude from www.regardinghorses.com

Equine behaviorist Carole Furieux, PhD of Univ. Rennes studies 59 horses in three equestrian centers In a study of 59 horses in three equestrian centers. Furieux and her team hoped to define the criteria for the evaluation of a very amorphous state, “well-being,” in the domestic horse.

Furieux et. al. discovered from this very small sample that certain posture positions and behavioral habits directly mirrored health problems such as back pain or abnormal blood parameters.

It turns out that the horses who aren’t feeling well physically or mentally are more likely to spend the majority of their stall time in particular positions.

Furieux said, adding that more precise descriptions of these positions will be released soon. “Researchers have already defined specific positions that reflect acute (immediate) stress, but it now appears that these can indicate chronic stress or pain as well.”

This might be useful as a glossy wall-hanging in a barn of novice horse owners. For anyone who has been around horses for 6 months, I suggest contacting Furieux with an offer to describe and illustrate the positions of distress, both acute and chronic.

Furieux also said that certain postures also appear to give insight into well-being, according to ongoing studies. Laboratory testing of stress hormone levels and other parameters are still underway.

The behavior and posture indicators we’ve discovered so far offer a reliable method to evaluate well-being. If a high percentage of horses in the same equestrian center are positive for these indicators, that should signal an alert about the level of living conditions being offered to these animals.

Furieux and her team plan to expand their research to greater numbers of horses and equestrian centers. Those results should lead to practical definitions and guidelines for evaluating equine well-being in the near future.

This is the foundational tenet of Tellington TTouch. Undesirable behavior is the result of pain, fear of pain or discomfort caused by health issues we may not have noticed. Add to that oversights in horsekeeping and the common horse sense that only develops over time, and you get a host of observable horsey behaviors or even non-behaviors, each with its own cause.

The key is keeping your eyes open and learning how to look, with eyes unclouded by preconceived notions of why a horse’s behavior should be a certain way, and what we should do if it’s not. The human brain organizes the world in such a way that we see what we expect to see, and we attribute to that the reasons we are accustomed to attributing. Truly open eyes, open mind, open heart–these things take a lot of work and some risk.

Could it be that your horse does that because you have neglected something in his horsekeeping?

An article entitled, the Neigh-Neigh Sisterhood in Natural History magazine explains how female friendships help wild mares cope.

Writer Stephan Reebs says,

Wild mares that form strong social bonds with other mares produce more foals than those that don’t, researchers have found, in what may be the first documented link between “friendship” and reproductive success outside of primates.

The three-year study followed several bands of feral horses in the Kaimanawa Mountains of New Zealand. Elissa Z. Cameron, now at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, and two colleagues computed sociality scores for fifty-six mares.

Sociality? How is this measured? They chose parameters such as the proportion of time each animal spent near other mares and the amount of social grooming she did. Cameron et.al. found that the scores correlated well with foaling rate: more sociable mares had more foals and also suffered slightly less harassment by the bands’ few males.

Correlational studies are difficult to interpret, and do not prove cause and effect, but they are a start. These data are consistent with the idea that bonds between females—even unrelated ones, as in horse bands—help them fend off pestering males, thus reducing stress and promoting healthy pregnancies.

Note: They shouldn’t need a study of horses to know that bonds between females help them fend off pestering males! Ever been to a club or bar?

I miss a few of my longtime readers and commenters. I suspect I know the reason for your recent absence, and I do not blame you one little bit. EHTT is NOT a “cause” blog. EHTT is an exploration blog. A thinking blog. A wondering blog.

One of the best things about blogging is the community of friends and mutual commenters we have going. It’s the only way to see what’s going on out there other than random clicking, and who has time for that? If you went away because you were tired of being clobbered over the head with a recent cause, It’s OVER. Come back. I’ve missed you. That’s not to say that I don’t already adore my new readers. I do. Adore you. Welcome. Speak out when it moves you.

This has been a busy month at Tellington TTouch, and so there has been little time to write and learn on my own. In March, look for more on oxytocin, the horsmone that governs touch and social bonding between horses and humans, and at also, the debut of Tuesday’s Touch.

A recap of thoughts this month.

The Hormone Oxytocin and Touch published on February 7 in Horses, Touch, and Science.

Affirmations For Horsepeople: Live in the Present Moment published on February 9 in Affirmations of Awareness, Mindfulness, Horses, and Horsemanship.

Multitasking Is Not Your Friend published on February 18 in Buddhism, Equine Intellect & Behavior, Mindfulness and Science.

If you were reading last month and had a favorite I didn’t list here, please let me know. For that matter, if you think these posts were no good at all and you’d rather see others (or none at all) in a month-end summary, say that, too!

If it pleases you, I’d like to see a link to your favorite posts from your own blogs, if you write them. Spread the love!

I got the idea for this post from the blog at Beliefnet and from falling while walking Rubydog. How did this happen? Simply put, I wasn’t paying attention. In comments on Live In the Present Moment we’ve been discussing quality of attention and how it affects riding and our lives, and I failed to practice what I preach.

As Rubydog and I rounded a corner on our way home from our morning walk/jog, I waved to the construction workers who are adding the new lanais on our complex, and put a foot wrong. I fell with a comically spectacular splat, removing skin and flesh from a large portion of my elderly knee. Ouch. Hilarity and gushing of blood ensued. Road rash in Hawaii has a particularly jagged quality because of the lava.

In truth, I was not paying attention. I was multi-tasking. I was thinking of my daughter, watching the rare two cars that were passing, and anticipating the greetings of the workers. Most folks would say this isn’t too much. That’s not multitasking! But it was. Look what happened.

Have you ever found yourself talking on the phone while walking down the street, while drinking a cup of coffee, making a mental shopping list, and getting your keys ready to open your front door?
What about talking on the phone while looking at your email, admiring a new car in a tv commercial?
Wouldn’t want to miss anything!
How about when we’re talking to a good friend and furtively glance at our Blackberry? Media guru Renny Gleeson says that what we’re really saying is, “you are not as important as literally almost anything that could come to me through this device.”
Ram Dass said it well, forty years ago: Be Here Now.
But we all try and multitask to some degree. Well, most of us. Here’s Thich Nhat Hanh on the topic:
“When I drink a glass of water, I invest one hundred percent of myself in drinking it. You should train yourself to live every moment of your daily life like that.”
I’m guessing Thay doesn’t have a Blackberry.
We often act as though multitasking is necessary, that to be successful in this frenetic world requires us to juggle hyperkinetically, never letting our attention rest on one thing for more than a fraction of a second. We’re given tips on how to do it better, and gadgets that make it easier. One of the biggest complaints people seem to have about the new iPad is its inability to multitask.

Driving, for sure, takes a lot of concentration. We all wish we could shout, “Get off the phone and drive!” now and again. In Hawaii, it’s illegal to use a cellphone in the driver’s seat. But the rest of the time, wouldn’t you think multitasking was OK?

Neuroscientist Gary Aston-Jones, Ph.D said in a recent CNN.com article, says there may be a cost associated with becoming an expert multitasker, saying it “may ‘lower the threshold of distractibility,’ possibly harming the ability to do tasks that require intense sustained focus, such as art, science, and writing.”

What humans can do, Millier said, is shift our focus from one thing to the next with lightning speed. This is very different from the way the mind and perceptual system of horses work. As we switch from attentive task to task, we fool ourselves into thinking we are paying attention to everything around us at the same time. But it is really sequential. Horses, unlike humans, perceive the reality around them in a diffuse way, for which they are sometimes punished. I wrote about this in Do You Demand Your Horse’s Complete Attention? and then it was discussed with great alacrity at Glenshee Equestrian Center.

The problem with multitasking is so very simple. Changing our minds is not. If we choose too many objects to give our attention to, we cannot deepen our familiarity, our friendliness, with any of them. Our minds cannot immerse themselves in each object’s arena beyond superficiality. It’s like glancing instead of examining.

Here’s where mindfulness practice can come in handy. Rather than acting as mental dilettantes and leaping from one task to another, if we allow our minds to fully occupy one object at a time, we can assemble a coherent theme. There is great comfort in this, and for those who practice it, greater productivity, connection to their inner worlds as well as to those in the outside world.

Resting with open attention on any object (by object I mean thought, thing, process, etc.) activates the innate human intelligence that is bypassed in multitasking. Deeper comprehension and familiarity allow greater effectiveness and insight. I suspect I don’t have to tell you this after you have tried thirty times to jump the same combination successfully. If you tried it the first ten times while mentally complaining your grocery list and the next two times while predcting that your horse was going to veer to the left after the second jump, your failure was practically guaranteed. Once your focus was fully on the process, however, and you held in your mind the picture of success (much like the visualization process of sports psychology), banishing all ideas of what might go wrong, you did it! Success!

Some of us, while looking at a piece of carrot, can see the whole cosmos in it, can see the sunshine in it, can see the earth in it. It has come from the whole cosmos for our nourishment. You may like to smile to it before you put it in your mouth. When you chew it, you are aware that you are chewing a piece of carrot. Don’t put anything else into your mouth, like your projects, your worries, your fear, just put the carrot in. And when you chew, chew only the carrot, not your projects or your ideas. You are capable of living in the present moment, in the here and the now. It is simple, but you need some training to just enjoy the piece of carrot. This is a miracle.

–Thich Nhat Hanh

Chögyam Trungpa way back in 1976, reminded me that I should not walk and think at the same time:

Meditation is working with our speed, our restlessness, our constant busyness. Meditation provides space or ground in which restlessness might function, might have room to be restless, might relax by being restless. If we do not interfere with restlessness, then restlessness becomes part of the space. We do not control or attack the desire to catch our next tail.

I come back to it again and again, much as Bonnitta does when exploring the left, the right, in order to find the middle: “Oops, Thinking! Let go of that thought. Focus on now.”

As Buddhists say so often:

When walking, just walk.

When riding, just ride.